Offensive special teams (meaning kickoff and punt returns and field goals and extra points) will be the province of tight ends coach John Lilly. Defensive special teams (meaning coverage and kick blocking) will fall to Mike Ekeler, just imported from Southern Cal to coach Georgia’s inside linebackers. This, I submit, is progress.

It’s not quite what I’d have done. I’ve never understand why, with all the lip service paid to the importance of special teams — they’re one-third of football; you can win and lose games faster there than anywhere else; blah blah blah — collegiate head coaches don’t do as NFL guys do and name a single special teams coordinator.

For a time, Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson bristled at the suggested notion, saying almost no college team had an ST coordinator. (Over that time, as you’ll recall, Tech and Georgia were running a heated race as to which could mess up more often in the kicking game.) Then, two years ago, Johnson broke down and hired David Walkosky as … er, special teams coordinator.

That isn’t to say the Jackets haven’t lost containment on a runback since. Their stats on returns weren’t anything special in 2013, but they did tie for fifth in the country in kicks blocked (with five) and for second in punts blocked (with three). By way of contrast, only one Tech kick got blocked. (Harrison Butker did miss a key 43-yard field goal in the second half against Georgia.)

But here’s a partial list of Georgia’s of special teams whiffs in 2013: Botched field goal in a three-point loss at Clemson; bad punt snap against South Carolina; a blocked punt for a touchdown and a kickoff return for a touchdown against North Texas; a blocked punt for a touchdown in an overtime victory at Tennessee, and three special teams mistakes in a four-point loss at Vanderbilt. By midseason Bulldogs fans were bemoaning those errors as much as they were injuries.

That Richt has chosen to pare the list of men responsible to two, as opposed to the previous five, can’t help but be an upgrade. Dividing the duties too many ways tends to mean that attention to detail is likewise divided. This doesn’t mean that Georgia will never muff another punt, but it does serve as further evidence that Georgia’s head coach isn’t unwilling to try things a different way. Good for him.

Too little too late if you axe me. Rick has been too busy in the tanning saloon and doing Chevy truck commercials to pay attention to the sad state of affairs we are in. To make matters worse, he hires John Pruitt and John Rocker as coaches. What the heck do a TV reporter and former baseball player know about coaching football????

I am sad to say that I have held my breath every time the Georgia special teams have come onto the field in recent years Hopefully this will be an improvement. If the long snapper can just hike the ball to the spot he is supposed to and not try to make It a fastball that would be an improvement. I recommend that the Georgia punt and kickoff returners not run back anything that goes into the end zone. Go Dogs! Beat the crap out of Tech.

This is a welcome sign that Richt has FINALLY acknowledged that special teams can LOSE games. We only had to lose about a two dozen games during his 13-year tenure for this fact to dawn on him.

It's a sad state of affairs when, as a Georgia fan, you EXPECT the snap to go over the punter's head. Or EXPECT the punter or holder to drop the rare good snap. Or EXPECT the punt returner to muff the punt.

I like Richt very much, but when you have a freshman attempting to catch and return a punt while in heavy traffic, in the 4th quarter of a game you are WINNING, it sometimes led me to wonder exactly how much this staff really understood fundamental football strategy.

That is why you are not a football coach They have a limited # of coaches where the NFL does not. It is not one third of the game Check your numbers if each team runs 60 plays you would need 40 ST plays and the #'s do not work out Also remember they have a limited time to practice per week........bad story.

Even an excellent specials team coach wouldn't change the outcome of botched field goals or bad snaps --- kick returns and blocks maybe --- but the majority of these blunders are not a product of scheme.

It doesn't matter who coaches the STs, if they don't get the practice time. Richt has not ever acknowledged a problem with the STs - even at mid season, he said 'our STs will be fine." So is he gonna spend the time necessary to make our STs a strength, instead of a JOKE?

I just don't think so. From game 1 to game 13 last season, the STs made mistakes that cost the Dawgs at least 3 losses.

That Richt is really on the job, it only took him 12 plus years to do something about special teams and even than, you don't expect him personally to do anything. Richt never has his hands dirty doing the work.

The head coach needs to take ownership of special teams. When you lay it off on part time assignment to
one or twenty assistant coaches it is like the high school football coach
teaching health courses, it is not what they are there for and they don’t do a
very good job. Bobby Dodd could out punt
most of his kickers at Tech and would end the practices with a kicking contest
that worked to make the special teams feel part of the organization. Frank Beamer made a living on special teams. Miami in its hay day with
guys like Hester did too. Parity demands
it, plus it puts an underline on discipline, the biggest problem these Georgia
teams have.

For me its still wait and see. We've heard this before and now its time to see results on the football field. This still falls squarely on Richt to make it happen. No more excuses... its time to get it done CMR!

When you listen to WBS AM750 about this announcement this morning, all they say is the part about Bryan McClendon given title of Recruiting Coordinator.

Announcing these 2 announcements at the same time, tells you how lackadaisical Mark Richt remains about Special Teams. Oh, yeah, and a former QB and WR is now in charge of all field goals and extra points. And, new 2nd duplicitous linebackers' coach is also responsible for kick-offs and punts.

26 losses in 6 years, one would think would get Mark Richt's attention that no longer can we afford to fair catch every punt, every kick-off while our opponents are trying to make hay with their punt returns and kick-off returns.

this is still not enough we need a special team only coach. i almost threw up every time we had a special teams play because my stomach knew something could and probly would go wrong then who do you blame? we have a all star dream team national championship staff exept in this very important category

Mark, do you research College football at all? I don't understand why you're so baffled by the notion that UGA doesn't hire a "Special Teams Coordinator". There are many college teams that don't, due to the NCAA colleges are limited on how many Assistant coaches they can have, which by the way makes no sense to me why the NCAA would restrict how many coaches you can have unless its the colleges way of keeping the payroll down. So if you hire a STC, what defensive coach or offensive coach do you let go? Who is more important?

By the way, Special doesn't make up "one-third of football" as you suggested unless you're thinking of it as Offense, Defense and Special Teams which would be retarded way of looking at it. Can a special teams mistake cost you a game, SURE IT CAN! Can a miss block or miss tackle cost you a game, ABSOLUTELY! See where I'm going? Remind me how many offensive and defensive plays there are in a game and then let me know how many special teams plays there are. By the way, how well has GT played the past two years since hiring the all so important Special Teams coach? If I'm not mistaken they've went from bad to worse.

Mr Bradley - "I’ve never understand why, with all the lip service paid to the
importance of special teams — they’re one-third of football; you can win
and lose games faster there than anywhere else; blah blah blah —
collegiate head coaches don’t do as NFL guys do and name a single
special teams coordinator."

The strictures on staffing mean a position coach has to handle that position most of the time. This means that they must split time between their position coaching AND the special teams. Coach Richt has said he does not believe that there is anyone that is an expert on all the phases of special teams. Even in the NFL the STC has to collaborate with position coaches So he has taken the approach of spreading the responsibilities around for the first 13 years of his tenure. John Lilly has been the de- facto coordinator for the past few years but that amounted to scheduling meetings and such more than anything else.

He now has a staff with a different skill set and he is leveraging it to full advantage. Since he believes the job is just too much for one person to handle, he is splitting it between two coaches and utilizing their strengths. Coach Ekeler has a background in special teams.

I like the concept and I expect it will yield better results. I realize that is very close to "damning by faint praise" but it has to be better.

We banned the fashion shows after Bust Boise in our Power Ranger uni and Black-out Bama down 31 to nothing at half starting the pre-season # 1, and well he found out you can get a whole field full of penalties sending even just all the guys on the field at the time as he said he intended hoping for a 15-yard penalty, after all of them added on to each other, which cost us a TD, celebrating. Still won. I am glad we did that. Florida celebrates over us all the time, while now he's won 3 in a row. He never was a head coach before and has reported to 2 A.D. neither of which were coaches to teach him any of this, although part-time women's tennis coach, Greg McGarity at least coached something. All the other one did Mike Adam$ hired when he fired Vince Dooley, was red panties. When you have no one to teach you vicariously, all you can do is learn the hard way. When Mike Adam$ refused to let the guy who hired him, teach him anything about coaching, these and many other errors such as hiring poor coaching staffs, have caught up with Mark Richt. But, everyone still loves him.

@Classof98 only a pessimist takes that view of things. The STs have been progressively worse for the past 4 years... not his entire tenure. STs were actually a strength of the team until @ 2008. Look it up.

@mcdaviddawg - through 2008 STs were a strength...it has only been since 2009 that the STs have not been up to snuff. Do the research before you spout a bunch of crap you've seen other that are similarly ignorant post.

@MoistDawg To their credit in 2013 the bad snaps stopped mid season when the competition for snapper was opened , and the dropped snaps and blocked punts stopped when they replaced Barber. The only continuing problem they had during the season was the adventure of fielding a punt.

@slydawg@NCDawg I have said many times and in many places that mistakes have been made. Unfortunately, because I don't word it so that it seems that Coach Richt is the worst coach in the history of college football, it seems to fly under the radar.

Take the game between us for example. There were 196 either special team plays or plays by the offense/defense.

30 were special teams' plays, slightly more than 18 %. Since this was double over-time game where there are no kick-offs, the percentage here would be slightly less here than normal, about 20 % of the total plays for games with no over-times might be about the average maybe.

Special Teams' Plays make up about 20 % of the total plays. If every possession were a score on every play, special teams' plays as a percentage then would go up.

This game had 6 long possessions of more than 8 plays on the drive, before a special teams' play happened again. And, that is the only manner in which possessions come into play.

@NCDawg@POAD2013@te29wr The point of ST being 1/3 of the game doesn't mean PLAYS it means Possessions. Most Possessions end with a special teams play be it a Punt/Punt Return, Score so FG or PAT then a Kickoff/kickoff return. If you count Possessions then 1/3 would make since.